Plot

Consummate entertainer Bobby Darin (1936-1973) is making a movie about his life. He's volatile, driven by the love of performing, ambition, perfectionism, and belief that he's living on borrowed time. He begins in the Bronx: a fatherless lad learning music and dance from his mom. His career starts slowly, then "Splish Splash" puts him at the top of the charts and on "Bandstand." He wants to be an entertainer, not a pop star, so he aims for the Copacabana, then it's on to the movies, where he meets and marries Sandra Dee. After, it's balancing career, health, marriage and family life, balances he doesn't always keep. Throughout, conversations with his boyhood self give him perspective.

Comments

Well acted, but not quite a top notch film, 1 January 2005 Author: Vash2001 from Arizona, USA I went to see this movie with no expectations at all. I did not know much about Bobby Darin, except that he was a popular singer who died young. I did not know any of his songs, but I had heard that he had married Sandra Dee, who I saw in a rented tape of Summer Place. I saw an interview of Spacey on Larry King Live and it got me interested because Darin's son seemed to support this movie. I like Kevin Spacey as an actor and he does a very good job of bringing out the person in the Darin character. I was amazed to see that he could sing and dance quite well. Kate Bosworth, who looks beautiful as Sandra Dee, does justice to the character. Considering her young age, it is astonishing that she played the actress over a range of age. I liked the first half of the movie. The movie should have attained greater heights in the second half but it did not. SPOILERS AHEAD.... The child 'Bobby Darin' kept interfering with the flow of the story. Introducing the child worked well in the first part of the movie, but toward the end it brought the movie down quite a bit. Particularly the last conversation between the two Darins, and the sing & dance after Darin's death were uncalled for, or it should have been very brief. The movie lost its intensity due to the addition. Earlier, when the secret about Bobby's mother is out, and he publicly acknowledges her as his mother, it was a high point of the movie, but it got lost. Toward the end when he performs great ("He is back!!") in a night club, just before he is rushed to the hospital, it was another high point. Darin's conversation with his son, and the son opening the suitcase which indicated that Bobby had passed on, were touching. However, again, the final song diluted it for me. It would have been much more effective to not bring back the child for so long, and instead a gallery of Darin's pictures while performing would have been more effective after his death in the movie. Another way would have been to simply add a footnote after his death. From what I heard, in real life Darin and Dee divorced (the movie shows the tensions between them quite well) and he remarried. From the movie one would think that they never divorced, and that they were separated for only a brief period while Darin moved to an isolated spot and lived in a trailer in an effort to discover himself. I was shocked when I first heard that Kevin Spacey was going to play Bobby Darin. I thought he was too old to play someone who died at age 37. Spacey does an admirable job of portraying the character, and directing the movie. Still it was hard for me to forget the difference in age. I cannot comment on the singing because I have not heard Bobby Darin's songs. Inspite of its flaws this is a pretty good movie (7/10). Definitely worth seeing once. However, those more acquainted with Bobby Darin's work, may have a different reaction to it.